Food Stamp Program Is Understaffed, Swamped, Horrible

Suzette Strickland's job helping people apply for food stamps sometimes includes explaining to clients why the state caseworkers handling their applications don't return phone calls, even after 20 messages.

"It's not that they won't call you back. They can't," Strickland, the food stamp program manager for End Hunger Connecticut, said she and her colleagues tell people. "There's just no way humanly possible for them to cover that many cases."

The state Department of Social Services is struggling to get food stamps to poor residents, and much of it is the result of not having enough workers to keep up with applications at a time when demand for assistance is soaring.

The 586 workers currently doing intake and case management screen applicants for all of the department's programs and are responsible for an average of 1,750 cases per month, according to DSS. That represents a 65 percent increase in caseloads in the past two years.

Some positions have remained vacant since 120 workers handling applications took early retirements in 2009 and then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell's administration approved replacing only 58 of them. Another 21 eligibility workers have left the department since last fall.

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